At least the convicted sex offender who worked as a substitute teacher in several Spokane County school districts in recent years is not alleged to have victimized children he contacted in the classroom.

That’s not to say that abusing a child is less deplorable when it arises from circumstances other than the contact between a teacher and a pupil. But society has reason to feel extra betrayal when the adults entrusted with children’s care and guidance turn out to be the ones who prey on them.

So the fact that Ralph Emerson Willcox Jr. had state teaching credentials and was periodically hired in this community’s schools should be heeded as a warning that official screening systems need improvement.

For the record, Willcox was not a known offender when he obtained his teaching certificate in January 2001. He came to authorities’ attention in the summer of 2003, and only because he sought counseling from a priest at the insistence of a 14-year-old victim’s father. The priest notified police, and three months later Willcox pleaded guilty to communicating with a minor for immoral purposes.

Before that, though, he had substituted in classrooms in Spokane, Central Valley and East Valley school districts. Willcox, who now has been charged with another incident that occurred in 2002, asked CV to take his name off that district’s substitute list. But East Valley eventually removed his name from its list only because he wasn’t returning the district’s calls.

No harm done? Perhaps, but no thanks to the system that’s intended to weed out such risks.

Because of Willcox’s guilty plea in November 2003, the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction revoked his teaching certificate, making him ineligible to teach, even as a substitute. But how was East Valley or any of the state’s other nearly 300 districts to know?

Under the state agency’s policies, notification of such action goes out only to the school district within which a problem arose, and only after the teacher in question has had 45 days in which to appeal.

Instead of a routine, statewide notification process – something that could be handled promptly and economically through electronic means – the office that oversees the state’s public schools posts a list of certificate revocations every three months.

And even those quarterly postings follow a lag time.

On Feb. 15 of this year, for example, the state office listed revocations for the period from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, 2006. Last Nov. 15, the Web posting covered the period from July 1 through Sept. 30, 2006. That means a teacher reported for a sex offense against children could lose his or her certificate yet escape notice at the school district lever for up to four and a half months.

That’s unsatisfactory. And chilling.

According to court records, Willcox took a lie-detector test in conjunction with a probation-violation matter and admitted he had abused 12 other victims over the past nearly 40 years.

Experts note that child sex offenders often seek work where they have access to children – schools, youth groups, music activities. Willcox has done all of those things. Perversely, offenders are frequently well-regarded by children and parents because they seem so warm and nurturing.

Far from excusing the state’s lackadaisical methods for alerting districts about potential trouble, that pattern makes stricter, more effective notification practices imperative.